Kristian "Chriserella" Michaels (born Christopher Columbus Michaels; July 6th, 1970) is a American-Canadian artist, animator, actress, filmmaker, musician, aviator, air show performer, trans woman, and LGBT activist, who has worked on multiple shows and movies. She is married to Robert Stainton. She directed Halloween Nightmare and two other episodes for Greeny Phatom.

Kristian was born at Bridgepoint Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as "Christopher Columbus Michaels" to an British-born American father and a Canadian mother. According to Kristian her father left Zanzibar (then a British protectorate) for safety reasons due to the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, in which thousands of Arabs and Indians were killed. She was given this name because her father was a huge history buff.

Kristian and her parents moved to East St. Johnsbury, Vermont, United States after her birth. Her dad ran a Showbiz Pizza Place, where she often went for birthday parties, explaining her love of animatronics, and the reason behind her ownership of a Rock-afire Explosion animatronic show. At a young age, Kristian's mom would force her to wear girl's clothing because she had always wanted a daughter. "Commonly, she would make me wear fake boobs and make me put on French maid outfits and stuff like that, and forced me to grow my hair long. Sometimes, she'd charge people money to come hang out at her and my dad's house. Every night after my brother went to bed, in the goat pen, for entertainment, she'd pleasure with a Hitachi Magic Wand and then whip me. I felt violated. Honestly, I feel weird whenever I draw... you know... lewd shit now. She'd also send me to school dressed as a woman with fake boobs, and tell people my name was "Sugar"." Kristian said that she saw the experience as "traumatizing, horrifying, and sickening", and admitted her becoming curious. She was infatuated with the feel of angora on her skin, as well as hobbies that a usual girl would have. From that point on, she wanted to become a girl. She often crossdressed, and often bought girl's clothing to keep for herself.

By the time she was 10, she was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder and started the transition from male to female, first through hormone therapy. At age 11, doctors at the Milford Regional Medical Center in Milford, Massachusetts performed an orchiectomy on Kristian. Later on at age 12 doctors at Taunton State Hospital in Taunton performed a penectomy. Later, later on at age 13 she went to California and went to Eisenhower Medical Center in the Coachella Valley and obtained a vaginoplasty. "Christopher was gone, and Kristian had taken over" said Kristian in a 2013 interview. Kristian had her original male genitalia preserved, they are kept in a jar she carries around at times.

Kristian attended Central Toronto Academy in the Palmerston-Little Italy neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was, surprisingly, not bullied for being trans very often in high school, and had a couple of friends (one of them being future Greeny Phatom show composer Jake Wrzesiński) she would make short films with. When her first couple of short films premiered at a theater in Toronto, she landed a job as an actress, first starring in The Jeff Jones Show as Moose Edwards, Jack Jones' girlfriend (and later wife). Jack Jones was played by her high school friend Jake Wrzesinski.

In 1990, Kristian revealed that she was a male-to-female transgender woman.

Kristian attended various universities, including Fitchburg State University and Quinsigamond Community College in Massachusetts and Fordham University in New York before graduating from Harvard University in 1997.